Google’s New Building in Mountain View – Cool!

Google’s vision for its new buildings in Mountain View is unlike anything built before it; Google describes the enclosures as “canopies,” but from the air they also look a little like greenhouses (a high-tech shading system will block the sun). Architect Bjarke Ingels says the idea is to “dissolve the building into a simple, super-transparent, ultra light membrane.” Thomas Heatherwick, who is also working on the project with Ingels, describes the approach as “a piece of glass fabric, and draping it across some tent poles.” The image also shows hundreds of oak trees, new walking and bike paths, and open space throughout the North Bayshore, a 500-acre enclave on the edge of the San Francisco Bay. At foreground is a triangular finger of land where LinkedIn is also eyeing a major redevelopment — a project that could not happen if Google is granted all of its development request.